pypy seems to have this right (though I don't know enough about their internals to know if cpython can benefit from their patch) $ venvpypy/bin/pythonPython 2.7.10 (3260adbeba4a, Apr 19 2016, 17:42:20) [PyPy 5.1.0 with GCC 4.8.4] on linux2 Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information. >>>> import ast, astpretty >>>> astpretty.pprint(ast.parse('"""\n"""')) Module( body=[ Expr( lineno=1, col_offset=0, value=Str(lineno=1, col_offset=0, s='\n'), ), ], )